Oil and gas exploration, and production requires large amount of data collection and displaying of data. Data collection including display well logs are a vital source of information in the subsurface. These graphs represent the measurements taken by logging tools of the rocks through which the borehole has penetrated. The signals can be interpreted to indicate specific rock lithologies and fluids, both for targeting in the logged well bore and for interpolation between wellbores.
Well logs are commonly printed onto paper or stored as image files. Well logs from wells drilled years or even decades ago are still valuable information about the subsurface. The oil and gas authority of each State requires that operators submit well logs to them to make subsurface information available to the public. In a well log image, the X axis typically representing the units and scale of the logged measurement including but not limited to, resistivity, gamma ray, neutron, and other petrophysical measurements and combinations thereof. The Y axis typically represents the depth of the well. As such, these graphs are narrow in width and very long in length, with an image ratio of 1:30 or more. Printouts of these well log graphs are created in specialized printers that output folded stacks of paper inches thick. Digitally, the graphs are stored as TIF files, but can also be stored in other image and document formats, including but not limited to as PDF, GIF, JPEG files and combinations thereof.
The advent of computerized technology in the oil and gas industry has meant that the traditional technique of “hanging” well log graphs on a wall for side-by-side comparisons has given way to analysis on the screen. Because of the ratios and the size of the images (usually 2 megabytes or more), these do not open easily in standard image-viewing software, such as Windows Photo Viewer. Moreover, one image alone is of little value, since they must be compared side-by-side to be interpreted, and standard image-viewing software is not designed to open and view multiple large images side by side.
Specialized software in the oil and gas industry has attempted to display well log image files, but all current software needs a desktop operating system. Moreover, current software only allows the user to scroll the entire cross-sectional viewing window, and not individual well log images independently. Advances in technology create user expectations that information and data be available on the internet through a browser at the click of a button. The TIF formats cannot be displayed in a standard browser window using HTML. Moreover, the size of the images precludes the convenience of sending more than one image file at a time over an internet connection. It is also apparent to persons skilled in the art that a user will not want to see the image at its full height, as the ratio preludes it from being useful to interpret unless it is zoomed in.
Therefore, a need exists in the field for a novel way of compressing image files, to facilitate quick transmittal from an online database to a users' machine through the Internet. When images are in TIFF format, a method is also needed to quickly convert to a format that is usable by standard HTML code in a browser. A need also exists for a method to show the beginning of an image quickly to allow an interpreter to begin working expediently. Another need is for images to be scrolled individually and synchronously. A further need exists for software to display the images using web technologies and allow an interpreter to generate products and knowledge from the image file. Accordingly, embodiments of this invention satisfy these needs.